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Volume II
285
‘Now here,’ replied Mr Jaggers, fixing me for the first time
with his dark deep-set eyes, ‘we must revert to the evening when
we first encountered one another in your village. What did I tell
you then, Pip?’
‘You told me, Mr Jaggers, that it might be years hence when that
person appeared.’
‘Just so,’ said Mr Jaggers; ‘that’s my answer.’
As we looked full at one another, I felt my breath come quicker
in my strong desire to get something out of him. And as I felt that
it came quicker, and as I felt that he saw that it came quicker, I felt
that I had less chance than ever of getting anything out of him.
‘Do you suppose it will still be years hence, Mr Jaggers?’
Mr Jaggers shook his head – not in negativing the question, but
in altogether negativing the notion that he could anyhow be got to
answer it – and the two horrible casts of the twitched faces looked,
when my eyes strayed up to them, as if they had come to a crisis in
their suspended attention, and were going to sneeze.
‘Come!’ said Mr Jaggers, warming the backs of his legs with the
backs of his warmed hands, ‘I’ll be plain with you, my friend Pip.
That’s a question I must not be asked. You’ll understand that,
better, when I tell you it’s a question that might compromise
me
.
Come! I’ll go a little further with you; I’ll say something more.’
He bent down so low to frown at his boots, that he was able to
rub the calves of his legs in the pause he made.
‘When that person discloses,’ said Mr Jaggers, straightening
himself, ‘you and that person will settle your own affairs. When that
person discloses, my part in this business will cease and determine.
When that person discloses, it will not be necessary for me to know
anything about it. And that’s all I have got to say.’
We looked at one another until I withdrew my eyes, and looked
thoughtfully at the floor. From this last speech I derived the notion
that Miss Havisham, for some reason or no reason, had not taken
him into her confidence as to her designing me for Estella; that he
resented this, and felt a jealousy about it; or that he really did object
to that scheme, and would have nothing to do with it. When I
raised my eyes again, I found that he had been shrewdly looking at
me all the time, and was doing so still.
286
Great Expectations
‘If that is all you have to say, sir,’ I remarked, ‘there can be
nothing left for me to say.’
He nodded assent, and pulled out his thief-dreaded watch, and
asked me where I was going to dine? I replied at my own chambers
with Herbert. As a necessary sequence, I asked him if he would
favour us with his company, and he promptly accepted the invi-
tation. But he insisted on walking home with me, in order that I
might make no extra preparation for him, and first he had a letter
or two to write, and (of course) had his hands to wash. So, I said I
would go into the outer office and talk to Wemmick.
The fact was, that when the five hundred pounds had come into
my pocket, a thought had come into my head which had been often
there before; and it appeared to me that Wemmick was a good
person to advise with, concerning such thought.
He had already locked up his safe, and made preparations for
going home. He had left his desk, brought out his two greasy office
candlesticks and stood them in line with the snuffers on a slab near
the door, ready to be extinguished; he had raked his fire low, put
his hat and great-coat ready, and was beating himself all over the
chest with his safe-key, as an athletic exercise after business.
‘Mr Wemmick,’ said I, ‘I want to ask your opinion. I am very
desirous to serve a friend.’
Wemmick tightened his post-office and shook his head, as if his
opinion were dead against any fatal weakness of that sort.
‘This friend,’ I pursued, ‘is trying to get on in commercial
life, but has no money, and finds it difficult and disheartening
to make a beginning. Now, I want somehow to help him to a
beginning.’
‘With money down?’ said Wemmick, in a tone drier than any
sawdust.
‘With
some
money down,’ I replied, for an uneasy remembrance
shot across me of that symmetrical bundle of papers at home;
‘with
some
money down, and perhaps some anticipation of my
expectations.’
‘Mr Pip,’ said Wemmick, ‘I should like just to run over with you
on my fingers, if you please, the names of the various bridges up as
high as Chelsea Reach. Let’s see; there’s London, one; Southwark,
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